Keith Hunter Jesperson (born April 6, 1955) is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was Jesperson's preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.
Jesperson's first memories of violence were being beaten with a belt by his father, who seemed to take pleasure in the abuse
His father and grandfather were both extremely violent and frequently abused their families. He moved to Selah, Washington, U.S., and because of his large size, he had trouble with making friends and was bullied by his classmates and his own brothers. Like many serial killers, Jesperson showed signs of psychopathy at an early age by capturing various animals, then torturing and strangling them to death. His desire to hurt other people first manifested itself in two attempted murders: the first when he attacked a friend, Martin, by beating him; and the second when he attempted to drown a boy at a public school. He also claimed that he was raped at age of fourteen, though this was never confirmed. Although he was not successful with courting girls, he managed to enter into a relationship after high school.
Keith Jesperson was just 20-years-old when he tied the knot with his only partner, Rose Hucke, in 1975. He’d never even attended a school dance or prom, so his involvement with girls was practically non-existent until after he graduated high school in 1973. In an interview with ABC’s ’20/20′ back in 2010, Rose openly explained, “When you’re young, you don’t realize that this person’s going to become who they become.” She then continued, “At the time [Keith] was a very charismatic, considerate young man and I had no clue that this is what he would become.”
After all, even though the couple gladly welcomed three children into their lives in the ages that followed, tensions began to arise when Rose started suspecting affairs. Consequently, after 14 years together, while Keith was on the road for work, she packed up all of her belongings and relocated to Spokane, Washington, with the children. Since her parents lived there, she already had an established support system. Thus, roughly a year later, the pair divorced — in 1990. Keith was apprehended in March 1995, and that is when the truth of his double life came to light.
Victims
Jesperson's first known victim was a woman named Taunja Bennett. He invited her to his house, and after having an argument, she was strangled to death with a rope and her body was later disposed of.
He established an alibi by going back out for some drinks, being sure to converse with others, before returning to retrieve Bennett's body and belongings to dispose of them. Jesperson dumped her body near the Columbia River Gorge, outside Portland. He was back on the road, the next day. The body was found a few days later, but there were no suspects and no leads. The case went unsolved until a woman named Laverne Pavliac claimed that she and her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, were responsible for her death.
Early in the investigation of Taunja Bennett's murder, Laverne Pavlinac read the news reports surrounding Taunja Bennett's death and saw it as an opportunity to force an end to the long-term abusive relationship she had been in with her live-in boyfriend, John Sosnovske.
She set up a meeting with the investigating detectives and gave a false confession, using the details she had read in reports to give a detailed story of how Sosnovske forced her to help him rape, murder, and dispose of Bennett's body.
Three months later, Jesperson met Daun Richert-Slagle, a 21-year-old mother of three who became the only known victim to survive an attack.
Pavlinac and Sosnovske were convicted of the murder in February 1991. To avoid the possibility of facing the death penalty, Sosnovske pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison, while Pavlinac was sentenced to no less than 10 years, much more than she had anticipated. She soon admitted to making it all up, but her claims were ignored.
On November 27, 1995, more than four years since their conviction, Pavlinac and Sosnovske were released from prison after Jesperson and his attorney offered his confession with convincing evidence of his guilt. He had given police officers the location of the victim's purse. The purse had not been found, and its location was considered information only the killer would know.
California Jane Doe. Jesperson’s second victim, known only as Claudia, was found murdered on August 30, 1992 in Blythe, California. Her body was found under the brush, in the desert. esperson told Phelps they met at a truck stop and that after he agreed to give her a ride he felt like she was trying to “play” him. That triggered him. He duct-taped her mouth and hands before raping and strangling her. It was 100 ft. from Highway 95. Jesperson claimed she was accepting rides from truckers and wanted to go to Phoenix, Arizona. He allegedly picked her up at the Break Check area off I-15 in Cajon Pass and drove her around San Bernardino. The victim had already traveled through Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Cynthia Lyn Rose, 32, was found dead in September 1992. Her body was discovered behind the Blueberry Hill Cafe in Turlock, California. Jesperson claims she was a sex worker who climbed into his truck, even though he told her he wasn’t interested in her services, according to the two-hour Oxygen special.
'I pulled into the Turlock rest area on Highway 99 southbound at around 3:30 in the morning, and I ran into this gal there,' the killer shared. 'I told her, you know, I basically didn't want any company, but she wanted to have company anyway.'
According to Jesperson's version of events, the woman was a sex worker who climbed into his truck, even though he wasn't interested in her services.
'There were probably 30 of them working the lot, and she was the first one to jump up inside of my truck,' he explained of the woman, who was later identified as Cynthia Lyn Rose, 32.
He told Phelps that he was 'angered' by her unwanted sexual advances. Pacheo noted that 'in and of itself was reason enough to kill her. He bragged about that subsequently and dismissed her as a "prostitute."'
A few months later, he murdered another sex worker, Laurie Ann Pentland, 26, whose body was found in Salem, Oregon, in November 1992. He alleged he killed her because she tried to double charge him for sex.
He told Phelps that he started writing his taunting notes to the police and journalists because it wasn't enough to just get away with the crimes.
'It's not fun getting away with murder without anyone knowing about it,' he said. 'The game is too boring just killing. We gotta have someone following us.'
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office announced that the body found on the side of California State Route 152 in the San Francisco Bay Area on June 3, 1993 belonged to Patricia Skiple of Colton, Oregon.
Skiple, a mother known to friends and family as 'Patsy,' would have been about 45 years old when she was killed, the sheriff's office said. Authorities identified her with help from the DNA Doe Project, a non-profit group that uses volunteers to help identify people listed as 'Jane Does' or 'John Does' through DNA profiles of possible relatives.
In 2006, Keith Hunter Jesperson wrote to the county district attorney's office and said he had sexually assaulted and killed a woman near the highway. A year later pled guilty to killing the woman, although her identity wasn’t yet known at the time of his conviction.
Jesperson's next two victims remain unidentified, as he claimed he didn't remember much about either of them. His fifth victim, an unidentified 'Jane Doe' living on the streets in Santa Nella, California, was discovered in July of 1993. Police initially believed she had suffered a drug overdose.
Another Jane Doe death, attributed to Jesperson, was found in September 1994 in Crestview, Florida. He said her name was Susanne.
Jane Doe had a leather sash with geometric trinkets around her waist, She also wore a Native American-style bracelet, The woman, who according to Jesperson was from Miami, had a deck of Tarot cards in her possession.
Back in 1995, police had a reconstruction done of the victim's skull and entered the image into a national database hoping to find out her name, but the woman went unidentified.
Police later learned from the woman's killer that the composite sketch created by forensic artists did not resemble the victim.
Jesperson, who took up drawing behind bars, offered Paul Moody to create a sketch of the woman he murdered two decades ago.
Moody went on to superimpose Jesperson's portrait over the victim's skull to create a 3D reconstruction, which included a full-length image of a blonde woman with a strong jaw and high cheekbones, dressed in a floral frock that was recovered from the crime scene.
In January 1995, Jesperson picked up a 21-year-old hitchhiker, Angela Subrize, whom he offered to drive from Spokane, Washington, to meet her boyfriend in Indiana.
On the journey, he raped and strangled her, then strapped her body face-down to the undercarriage of his truck so her face and prints would be ground off by the road while he drove. Because Jesperson allowed her to use his credit card to make a phone call, he devised a depraved way to conceal her identity. “He strapped the woman beneath his big rig,” the New York Post reported. “Her body disintegrated against the hot asphalt as he drove.” Her body was found after his arrest.
Julia Ann Winningham, 41, who was Jesperson's long-term girlfriend when she was strangled.
He claimed did not love him but only wanted his money. She was the only victim he could be connected to. The rest are believed to have been strangers.
Jesperson initially refused to talk to police and attempted suicide twice. He then turned himself in, hoping for leniency at his trial.
He confessed details of his murderous history while in custody but later recanted much of it. At one point he claimed to have had as many as 160 victims but so far only eight have been confirmed.
Jesperson was finally caught in March 1995 after strangling his long-time girlfriend Julia Ann Winningham
Covering his tracks: After he strangled her with a rope, he used a knife to cut off the buttons on her jeans, fearing he may have left fingerprints on them
Forensic Evidence Eventually Linked Keith Jesperson To Bennett's Murder
Jane doe's decomposed remains were discovered more than 21 years ago in Okaloosa County, Florida, months after her slaying
The killer dumped the woman's body in the tree line along Interstate 10 near Pensacola
What's the truth? Jesperson has claimed to have murdered around 166 people, but only eight murders have been attributed to him
The first missive from The Happy Face Killer popped up before Pavlinac and Sosnovske went to trial, but it wasn't deemed credible. It was scrawled upon a bus station bathroom wall in Montana, and read, “I killed Tanya Bennet [sic] January 21, 1990 in Portland, Ore. I beat her to death, raped her, and loved it. Yes, I’m sick but I enjoy myself, too. People took the blame and I’m free.” It was signed with a happy face, the New York Daily News reported.
More notes followed, as Jesperson, in what seemed to be a bid for attention, sent letters to several news outlets and police stations bragging about his murders, all marked with a happy face. One lengthy, six-page letter to The Oregonian, for example, described the murder of five women and the location of their bodies. A columnist for the outlet, Phil Stanford, eventually gave him the nickname The Happy Face Killer, The Oregonian reported in 2014.
But it wasn't the notes that would lead to his capture.
Police also uncovered a letter he had written to his brother before he was arrested, where he said, “I am sorry that I turned out this way. I have been a killer for five years and have killed eight people. Assaulted more," the New York Daily News reported.
Jesperson was found guilty of murdering Bennett in 1995, the Los Angeles Times reported. Over the following years, he was found guilty of seven other murders and has been sentenced to life in prison for four consecutive terms, according to "Snapped Notorious: The Happy Face Killer."
Jesperson remains in the Oregon State Penitentiary to this day. His daughter, Melissa Moore, told the BBC she cut off contact with him entirely after her grandfather revealed Jesperson said he thought about killing her children sometimes.
Jesperson is known to have killed eight women over the course of five years. Strangulation was his preferred method, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child. After the body of his first victim, Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded Laverne Pavlinac, a woman who falsely confessed to having killed Bennett with her abusive boyfriend.
Jesperson was upset that he was not getting the attention, and first drew the smiley face on the bathroom wall where he wrote an anonymous confession for the murder, hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime. When that did not elicit a response, he began writing the letters to media and prosecutors. Many of his victims were prostitutes and transients with no connection to him; however, his final victim was his long-time girlfriend. That connection is ultimately what led to his downfall. While Jesperson has claimed to have killed as many as 160 people, only eight murders have been confirmed.
Phelps said he reached out to the serial killer a decade ago because he wanted to 'unravel the mind of a psychopath strand by strand.'
He wrote about their nine-year correspondence in his book8 Dangerous Ground: My Friendship with a Serial Killer, which was published in 2017.
In the Oxygen special, Phelps said he was still in touch with Jesperson but would soon be cutting ties with him, explaining: 'I'm not going to get any new information out of him.'
'I know that he's just playing that psychopath game,' he added. 'You know, he wants to continue to play chess, and it's checkmate for me, dude.'
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